Hold My Hand - Lashton

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Sixteen

-

"Bonum mane!" Ashton chirped as he walked into the kitchen to see the blonde sat in the same space he had for the past nine weeks. Today was the final Monday of the term, and Ashton felt a little sad that this routine would come to halt for a while.

Luke turned around and stared at the curly-haired boy confused. He had a clue of what the older boy had just uttered, but it wasn't the usual greeting he received every morning. "It's Latin," Ashton informed. "I thought you would have known it?"

Luke shook his head. "I know some phrases, but it's not a useful language to waste time on!"

Ashton hummed in agreement and he began to boil the kettle. "I like to learn little phrases in different languages. I know good morning in twenty-three languages now!"

Smiling the blonde laughed, he thought it was quite sweet that Ashton devoted some time to learning little phrases to help communicate with people.

"What do you have today?" Ashton asked. They asked each other this most days as it seemed like a respectful thing to do. They also liked to learn little niche things from one another's courses.

"Just a lecture," Luke said, swallowing his porridge.

"About?" Ashton urged, wanting to know.

Luke shrugged, he had yet to look at the preparatory slides. "We had to read Things Fall Apart-"

"I've heard of that!" Ashton exclaimed, excited that he had finally heard one of the books that the blonde was studying. "I've wanted to read it for a while!"

"You can borrow it if you like?" Luke asked softly, standing up as Ashton sat down.

Ashton nodded thankfully and then began to watch the boy clean up. "What time is your lecture?" he asked. He knew what time it was, it was at midday, but he didn't want to seem like a stalker.

"At twelve," the blonde said over the sound of running water, steam rising from the sink.

"Do you think I could come? It sounds really interesting."

Luke froze and tried to think of something to say. He didn't want Ashton to come. He didn't like people sitting next to him, and if they did he always worried that they were watching him. Watching and judging him for writing everything down despite it being all online anyway.Ashton sensed the tension forming and sighed. "It's okay to say no Luke, I'm not going to hold it against you."

Luke took a deep breath and turned around to look at Ashton, their eyes meeting and Luke revealing the fear and panic in his eyes. Ashton understood and sighed. "I won't judge you, Luke, if that's what you're worried about. I can't judge you anyway because you're doing something right. I can only learn from you."

Luke blushed and looked down, he noticed his shoelace was undone and started to wonder if he had ever even tied it up this morning. "Okay," he confirmed. "Do you want to meet in here ten minutes before?"

-

"I've never been in here," Ashton said, staring around the lecture theatre, admiring the odd architecture - it was modern and ugly but at the same time pleasing to the eye.

Luke nodded as if he knew, playing with the lid of his pen. "All but one of my lectures are in here. The seats are a little too far away from the tables and I'm tall!" he said, looking down at his legs

that were a little squashed under the low table.

Ashton peered down at the blondes notebook, the title neatly written out. His writing almost illegible, simply just looking like a bunch of slanted and wavy lines.

Not long later the lecturer entered and Luke found himself muttering to Ashton. "She's beautiful, is she not?"

Ashton watched the woman organise her papers and too admired her like the blonde. He understood what he meant. He was not attracted to her, but her elegance and confidence were mesmerising.

So after the lecture begins and the pair fell silent, Ashton leaning back and listening carefully and Luke scribbling down every word he could manage to get down.

"I trust you all read the book or at least read something about it. As you know it is one of my favourites! I know it is not the easiest read, but that is because the language is not what you are used to. You are stepping into a new culture.

There are many ways you can read this novel, the ending in particular, but I just want to throw a couple of ideas at you.

If you read the book you will know that the Igbo culture was brought down by white men. They were originally pagans, but they were converted to Christianity. And this introduction of.

Christianity creates chaos and as a result all the loyal ancestors, like Okonkwo, are forgotten and their culture becomes extinct.

But does Okonkwo fall apart because of the civilising mission of was it his tragedy? Was the change in the Igbo community inevitable?

As you know the novel references William Butler Yeats poem The Second Coming and the poem itself shows that the west is everyone's worst enemy. Their ability to create and manufacture weapons that the Igbo community could not do allowed the colonisation. But also caused great harm to their own culture.

And as this is an English course lets talk about the language Achebe uses. No doubt it would have been quite difficult and strange to read. But it gives you a sense of their community. And their language worked for them, so why did it need to be changed?

The language reenacts the beauty, philosophy and poetry of the Igbo language and culture. It also shows the politically fraught reformulation of the inherited imperial language and displacement of authority. The novel is a vehicle for cultural re-inscription in an authentic African voice and transportation of the literature medium and morality."

The lecture then moved on to more technical language that Ashton could not keep up with and his gaze adverted to the blonde who was too absorbed by the woman's words to notice that he was being watched.

Ashton found the boys concentration and interest in the subject attractive. He couldn't explain why but the boy seemed so confident and in his element here, despite being surrounded by people he did not know. He was almost in a different world.

And this made Ashton feel more relaxed and relieved than ever. He sat back in his chair and smiled to himself. He was content that there was something out there that made the younger boy calm and open.

-

Sorry if there's any mistakes I haven't had time to go back over it.

I hope you enjoy the intertextuality, let me know if you like this or if you just skip it?

I am after much debate gonna start editing my books, because I know there are some funny spelling errors and I just want to change a few things.

I think I might also change my update schedule as I will be moving back to uni soon and I need to start preparing so I will have less time to write and I don't want the quality to drop as I feel it has been.

Thank you so much for reading.